Quaker Meeting

The silence holds the air in place; its hooks
are hung with sounds he knows, from week to week.
Dock, dock: the clock makes sure that time goes by;
and there’s the cough, the handbag clasp, the mints.
A page is turned, legs crossed, uncrossed, stretched out.
A stomach rolls a drum. At quarter past
the children leave, relieved of hush. Without
their eyes and sighs the silence lightens, swells.
He sits, hands clasped, eyes closed; he breathes in, frowns.
A blackbird’s song flies in upon the draught.
The hooks dissolve, the noises lift away,
his heart beats loud and now he knows, as sure
as love, that there is something to be said:
it’s folded on his tongue. He stands. He speaks.